Great Violinists And Pianists eBook

“‘This is impudence,’ said the leader.
’And do you think, boy, that you can play it?’
‘Yes,’ I said, quite honestly. I don’t
to this day see why I should have told a story about
it—­do you? ‘Now you shall play
it,’ said somebody. ‘Hear him! hear
him!’ cried my uncle and the rest of them.
I did try it, and played the allegro. All of them
applauded save the leader, who looked mad.

“‘You think you can play anything, then?’
asked the leader. He took a caprice of Paganini’s
from a music stand. ‘Now you try this,’
he said, in a rage. ‘I will try it,’
I said. ‘All right; go ahead.’

“Now it just happened that this caprice was
my favorite, as the cats well knew. I could play
it by memory, and I polished it off. When I did
that, they all shouted. The leader before had
been so cross and savage, I thought he would just
rave now. But he did not say a word. He looked
very quiet and composed like. He took the other
musicians aside, and I saw that he was talking to
them. Not long afterward this violinist left
Bergen. I never thought I would see him again.
It was in 1840, when I was traveling through Sweden
on a concert tour, of a snowy day, that I met a man
in a sleigh. It was quite a picture: just
near sunset, and the northern lights were shooting
in the sky; a man wrapped up in a bear-skin a-tracking
along the snow. As he drew up abreast of me and
unmuffled himself, he called out to my driver to stop.
It was the leader, and he said to me, ’Well,
now that you are a celebrated violinist, remember
that, when I heard you play Paganini, I predicted
that your career would be a remarkable one.’
‘You were mistaken,’ I cried, jumping
up; ’I did not read that Paganini at sight; I
had played it before.’ ‘It makes
no difference; good-by,’ and he urged on his
horse, and in a minute the leader was gone.”

II.

To please his father, Ole Bull studied assiduously
to fit himself for the preliminary examination of
the university, but he found time also to pursue his
beloved music. At the age of eighteen he was entered
at the University of Christiania as a candidate for
admission, and went to that city somewhat in advance
of the day of ordeal to finish his studies. He
had hardly entered Christiania before he was seduced
to play at a concert, which beginning gave full play
to the music-madness beyond all self-restraint.
As a result Ole Bull was “plucked,” and
at first he did not dare write to his father of this
downfall of the hopes of the paternal Bull.

We are told that he found consolation from one of
the very professors who had plucked him. “It’s
the best thing could have happened to you,”
said the latter, by way of encouragement.

“How so?” inquired Ole.

“My dear fellow,” was the reply, “do
you believe you are a fit man for a curacy in Finmarken
or a mission among the Laps? Nature has made you
a musician; stick to your violin, and you will never
regret it.”